Cover Image

Politics and Poetry: A Collection of Poems on Politics and International Relations

Ever envisioned what the amalgamation of politics and poetry looks like? Persuasion and eloquence are at the heart of this combination. This book brings about the pleasure of succinctly, emotively, figuratively, and strangely compellingly expressing politics. Poetry has always been praised for its patterned language, as a form of literary art, and for its amusing rhyming scheme. Beyond this order, poetry has always been at the heart of politics, through expressive and loud poems that capture the struggles of the day or implicit ciphers aimed at dispatching encoded messages. This book is tasked with capturing the current political state of affairs through poetry and inciting an alternative form of reading, writing, and exploring politics through a different writing genre.

Ndzalama Mathebula is an Assistant Lecturer at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Johannesburg. She is also an Associate Editor for the Journal of World Affairs: Voice of the Global South.  Her research niches include energy and mineral resources, African political economy, political risk analysis, and international relations. Ndzalama holds a bachelor’s degree in Humanities, an Honours degree in Politics and International Relations, and a Master’s degree in Politics from the University of Johannesburg, and she’s currently pursuing her PhD on Energy Communities.  Ndzalama has recently published a book titled  Debt Crisis and Sovereign Risk in Africa. She also holds membership with the Institute of Risk Management South Africa and has participated in conferences, webinars, and TV interviews as a political commentator and panellist.

Authors:
Ndzalama Mathebula
University of Johannesburg
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4313-8555
Lebogang Malapile
University of Johannesburg
https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7994-353X

Product details

Chapters

  • Book Overview
  • What is Poetry
  • Why Politics and Poetry?
  • 30 Years of Democracy
  • Africa’s Independence
  • Africa’s Debt Crisis
  • Global Politics in the 21st Century
  • The Realist Actor
  • Political Risk
  • Thucydides Trap
  • Is International Law Really a Law?
  • Energy Politics
  • Afterword
  • Liberalism: The most dangerous form of realism
    Lebogang Malapile

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Published
August 29, 2025

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ISBN-13 (15)
9780906785997
Date of first publication (11)
2025-08-29

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ISBN-13 (15)
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ISBN-13 (15)
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ISBN-13 (15)
9780906785980
Date of first publication (11)
2025-08-29
Physical Dimensions
127mm x 203.2mm x 2.76mm

How to Cite

(Ed.). (2025). Politics and Poetry: A Collection of Poems on Politics and International Relations. UJ Press. https://doi.org/10.64449/9780906785997